Lindsey Vonn is returning to alpine ski World Cup racing in Austria at the weekend after recovering from an arm fracture. The 32-year-old US racer is starting the downhill in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee on Saturday after completing a three-month programme of rehabilitation. Vonn, who broke her upper right arm while training in Colorado in November, returns some three weeks ahead of the world championships in St Moritz, Switzerland. With 76 World Cup wins, a record for a women's skier, she is chasing the all-time record of 86 wins by Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden. "Words cannot describe how excited I am to be returning to the slopes this week," she told Eurosport on Wednesday. "It's been a tough three months with over 300 hours of rehabilitation but being able to go fast and compete again makes all of the hard work with it." Vonn said in a Facebook message she also suffered severe nerve damage and was "still struggling to do simple things like put on my ski glove and do my hair, but I'm at a point where I am comfortable with my hand in most situations." She added: "This has been the hardest recovery of my career to date but thankfully it has taken less time to heal than my knee injuries." Vonn's training accident came as she was preparing to return to racing after breaking the tibial plateau in her right knee during a World Cup race in Andorra at the end of February. It was the third time in four years that her season had been ended by serious knee, leg or ankle injuries. She missed the 2014 Winter Olympics because of knee injuries and the start of the 2016 season with a broken ankle.
